Lessons from Cuba, then and now

By Victor and Ellen Perlo, People's Weekly World,
31 January 1998

In 1959, we drove down the Florida coast to Key West,
bought plane tickets to Havana, Cuba for $16 each. On
landing, as the plane taxied to the terminal, an American
businessman type, observing young men and women going
through military training on a nearby field, sneered at
their "lack of discipline." Three years later, at the Bay
of Pigs, the U.S. invaders learned otherwise the hard way.

In Cuba, we found a happy people. It was a mere three
months after the victory of the revolution. We've never
seen anything like it, before or since. Riding on a bus,
the passengers laughed, joked, and called out to us when
our stop was reached. Little children on the street went up
to the bearded, long-haired militia and patted them. They
had won their revolution, which they had fought for long
and hard. They were liberated from the Batista
dictatorship; they looked toward a socialist future.

The swimming pools of the rich tourists' hotels were open
to the people, Black and white, without charge. The
restaurants were also open to all.

We stayed at a modern seafront hotel. But as the torrent of
hostile, anti-Cuban, anti-Communist propaganda in the U.S.
media was already having an effect, the mobs of tourists
that in previous years had crowded Havana were missing. We
were the only guests at the hotel, although Cubans filled
the restaurant at meal times.

After a few days another American checked in, a youngish
man escaping, he said, from a nagging wife. He was hoping
to find the gambling and other facilities he had previously
enjoyed. He didn't, of course.

I stopped in at the offices of El Hoy, the organ of the
Popular Socialist Party (PSP), the name used by the Cuban
Communist party. It was closely allied with Fidel Castro's
26th of July Movement and, in fact, a few years later the
two merged into the Communist Party of Cuba, and El Hoy
merged into Granma.

The editor of El Hoy, Carlos Rafael Rodriguez, welcomed me.
Carlos Rafael was confident that Cuba would survive and
flourish because of the overwhelming support of the Cuban
people. He emphasized that the revolutionary forces would
hold on to power even if the imperialists succeeded in
assassinating Fidel. He stated that he was aware that he,
himself, was a target: the premises of El Hoy had been
destroyed more than once.

For me, his confidence in the permanence of the revolution
was important. It came at a time when most liberals and
left-of-center U.S. groups (although not the CPUSA) were
writing off the Cuban revolution as bound to fail. And the
confidence of Carlos Rafael Rodriguez has been borne out.
Throughout subsequent decades, Carlos Rafael became a
leading force in the Cuban government and Party.

For 37 years U.S. imperialism has conducted a vicious,
unrelenting campaign, with no holds barred, against this
small country. But all attempts to undermine it have
failed. Slanderous propaganda, assassination plots, legal
maneuver that violates international standards of commerce
between nations.

European governments have verbally attacked Helms-Burton,
but in practice government and corporations have yielded to
it. Only Canada - its people, government and corporations -
has steadfastly maintained normal relations with Cuba,
defying Helms-Burton and its penalties.

Why is the United States so hostile toward this small
island country 90 miles from our east coast?

The State Department "justification" for labeling a number
of countries "rogue states" and for treating them
accordingly is the charge that they sponsor terrorism. In
the case of Cuba, there is no such charge, nor can there be
as Cuba clearly eschews terrorism.

But the United States is guilty of violent terrorism
against Cuba: the recent bombing of a number of Cuban
tourist hotels and dropping their plant- destroying
chemicals from planes, not to mention the many attempts to
assassinate Castro, for which Washington does not consider
it necessary to apologize!

The anti-Cuban blockade is a means of stroking the emigre
Cuban capitalists who absconded with whatever they could
get their hands on of Cuban property. That's not the only
motive for hostility, but important.

Claims of debts to U.S. corporations for nationalized
properties is another pretext. Of course, any foreign
investment is undertaken at the risk of the investor, and
claims have to be settled in accordance with the laws of
the host country. Such claims are no business of the U.S.
government.

In the case of Cuba, sabotage by the investing companies
forced the nationalization, for the most part. The Exxon
refinery at Santiago de Cuba is one example. Cuba was
required by Exxon to supply the crude oil to be refined.
Because of the U.S. blockade, Cuba had to buy its crude oil
from the USSR, which offered favorable terms. But Exxon
refused to process the Soviet oil, which Cuba had to have
refined. Ergo, Cuba was forced to nationalize the Exxon
facility.

And I have seen no claim on Cuba in Exxon's annual reports.
Any such losses have long since written off and now emerge
in order to get what they can from Helms-Burton. The damage
done to Cuba by the U.S. economic warfare exceeds many
times the total of all conceivable economic claims against
Cuba.

U.S. corporations do not seriously expect to collect, but
Washington wants to use Helms-Burton to hamper European
competitors. There is no attempt to negotiate on the
claims, nor is there any offer of relaxation of the
blockade if the claims are met.

But the real, overriding reason for U.S. cold war
aggression against Cuba is the hatred and fear of Communism
on the part of the U.S. capitalist class, especially the
leading, most powerful elements - including elected
officials they control. They know that in any "fair"
competition, socialism would come out way ahead.
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Cuba freed from the hardships imposed by the U.S. blockade
would be a powerful revolutionary influence on all of Latin
America and the Caribbean - the neo-colonial backyard of
U.S. imperialism. So the American power elite uses every
device to tilt the playing field radically in their favor.
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For many years the USSR gave favorable trade terms to Cuba.
The Gorbachev-Yeltsin betrayal, which destroyed the USSR,
was a serious blow to Cuba. And the Cuban people deserve
great credit for surviving the intensified pressures that
treasonous sellout exacted.

The support of the scores of Americans who break the
blockade to take urgently needed commodities to Cuba
expresses the solidarity of thousands of U.S. citizens. But
such aid can only be a minor factor in relation to needs.

We look forward to the time when American labor will take
the lead in cracking the corrosive U.S. blockade, in
smashing Helms-Burton and ending the constant military
provocations against valiant Cuba.